The song is about realising your sexuality and rejecting not speicifically religion. I think he's using God as a metaphor for society and their expectations.
After experiencing some life, he realises that he needs to look at himself . Maybe after having sex with a person ( maybe a religious one ) while not quite awake ( for some reason)"I was vaguely half asleep...my reputation swept back home in drag" .. " the moral of this magic spell negotiates my hide when God did take my logic for a ride.
"After all, at the start of the song he sings that his path before was " straight and narrow"
He looks at himself and his desires "I looked and frowned ....and the monster was me".In other words, he was the same as that person who seduced him.
Later, he wants and experiences on the seven deadly sins " lust " Hence the description is more of a devil lust experience. " he said you'll never go down to the gods again."
The background voices are the strains of his concious " turn around go back " i.e. don't live this way . battling the temptation but " I said do it again, do it again".
Given what has been well documented about is social life at this stage and him dressing in drag for the album's original cover, the fact his manager kenneth Pitt wanted him to be a spokesman for the gay community, and the continued homsexual references in the Ziggy songs "squawking like a pink monkey bird " " john I'm only dancing " and lines in "velvet goldmine" ..and the gay theme in Sweet Thing/Candidate and exploration of gay masturbation in "Time" I think Bowie used sexual ambiguity and gay themes throughout his songs in this era . Ironically, he's come the WIDTH OF A CIRCLE having seemingly settled in a heterosexual relationship and at peace with himself. Good for him I say.
The song is about realising your sexuality and rejecting not speicifically religion. I think he's using God as a metaphor for society and their expectations.
After experiencing some life, he realises that he needs to look at himself . Maybe after having sex with a person ( maybe a religious one ) while not quite awake ( for some reason)"I was vaguely half asleep...my reputation swept back home in drag" .. " the moral of this magic spell negotiates my hide when God did take my logic for a ride. "After all, at the start of the song he sings that his path before was " straight and narrow"
He looks at himself and his desires "I looked and frowned ....and the monster was me".In other words, he was the same as that person who seduced him.
Later, he wants and experiences on the seven deadly sins " lust " Hence the description is more of a devil lust experience. " he said you'll never go down to the gods again."
The background voices are the strains of his concious " turn around go back " i.e. don't live this way . battling the temptation but " I said do it again, do it again".
Given what has been well documented about is social life at this stage and him dressing in drag for the album's original cover, the fact his manager kenneth Pitt wanted him to be a spokesman for the gay community, and the continued homsexual references in the Ziggy songs "squawking like a pink monkey bird " " john I'm only dancing " and lines in "velvet goldmine" ..and the gay theme in Sweet Thing/Candidate and exploration of gay masturbation in "Time" I think Bowie used sexual ambiguity and gay themes throughout his songs in this era . Ironically, he's come the WIDTH OF A CIRCLE having seemingly settled in a heterosexual relationship and at peace with himself. Good for him I say.